Rain
A Tom Riddle/Minerva McGonogall tragedy
AN: This story is set in the year 1957, a year after Minerva started teaching. I could find no date of birth for her, so I made her the same age as Riddle. At the time of this fic, they are both thirty-one years old. Nothing belongs to me. This story was written for the Fanon Challenge by lizzyjonas98 on HPFF.
She would always remember the rain. Even years later, sitting by the fire in her rooms, clad in her favourite tartan gown, she would remember the rain.
He knocks harshly against the wood of the door. She ignores it at first, tired and angry at no one special. It is the holidays, and she doesn't want to get up. Negligence, she scolds herself. She should be polite. So, she grabs her coat and throws it over, marching towards the front door. She rips it open and quite suddenly, she stops. She did not expect this.
He is standing there, his hair wet and clinging to his cheeks. It has grown too long, and for a moment, she wants to reach out and swipe it from his face, tangle her hands in it. Instead, she simply says "Tom". He nods and enters without asking for permission. He was never courteous to her. She is glad, because she knows that the polite, soft side of him is false. Deceiving. He is no man of laughter, but in a strange way, she can respect that.
She looks out and sees the rain and it symbolizes their relationship for a moment. No bright rays of sunshine, no sweet kisses or gentle caresses. Instead there is grey and darkness. But water, if there is enough of it, is strong in its own right. They are harsh people, powerful and intelligent, but uninterested in true love, romantic proposals or white weddings. He is her perfect match in so many ways, but in others, he makes her afraid. Sometimes.
She looks at him. He looks different than so many years ago. She knows that she is as well. Thirteen years have passed since they have last seen each other. They were eighteen, young and there was something between them. Not love, but the closest two people like them could get to it. But it was the year 1943 and there was a war going on. She is and was brave and courageous, foolish to the eyes of some. But she made her choice, and she followed her mentor into the war.
He screamed at her in those nights, to stay back, to stay with him. He didn't want to watch her go. However, she would have never chosen him over her conscience. She did the right thing, always. It made him fear her, though of course he would never have admitted it. Weakness were forbidden, and she was his.
She hears the clock click and chime an thinks of her mother's words: "Watched water never cooks." They both have the strength of mind to sit here for the following hours, neither admitting defeat. After all, they are both in the right, in their opinions. She is the one who left, and he is the one who refused her what she thought to be right. She had searched for him as soon as she had returned, in the summer of 1945. But life was sometimes against you, and by the time she had appeared, he was long gone. And now, thirteen years have passed.
"I heard you returned to your old friend." She so very nearly cringes at the acid in his voice. He knows how to hurt her.
She raises her head and stands up angrily. "Is that what you came here for? To tell me that you still don't trust me? That you're still jealous of a man more than twice my age? You here the one who left for the last eleven years."
He doesn't fear that she will fall for the headmaster, betray him for the older man, but he envies the connection they share, a mix of righteousness and bravery. "I'm back."
"Why?" Her hand swipes out, stopping only inches away from the crystal vase standing on the cupboard. She breathes in deeply and moves towards him. "Why, Tom, why?"
"Is it important?"
He never does anything without a reason. She remains silent, staring at him defiantly. "I want you to join me." Outside, rain drops fall onto the pavement, unaware of the fateful words being spoken inside the small house.
She stops her movement and he watches the way her shoulders stiffen, her gaze turns wary. His words awaken old memories in her, power and might, things she thought he had spoken foolishly. And maybe it was that moment in which she sees, once again, that while she has never underestimated his power or his intelligence, she has put too little on his determination and his burning desire to achieve something. He is staring a her, a fire in his eyes as he demands her answer. She will not give it this easily of course, because she is a proud woman and because she is wary of his words. Too many questions, too few answers.
"Join you?" she asks. "For what exactly?"
He spreads his hands. "For everything you will ever want or wish for." He wants to continue, but she cuts him of with a quick hand gesture. "That was not what I was asking." Don't you know me at all? "I meant for which aim. What do you want to achieve, Tom."
This is the first time she sees that tiniest flicker of annoyance when she speaks his name and she wonders what it is about. "For the future", he whispers. "For everything you could ever dream of. A better place." He has always been talented at this, this kind of talking, of convincing.
He bends down to kiss her, and for a moment, she isn't strong enough anymore to deny him. The passion between them is still there and she feels it in the way his hands are everywhere, skimming her skin and the way she wants to pull him close to her, wants to make this single kiss last throughout eternity.
Some part of her knows that she should pull away, but that takes a very different kind of strength. She loses herself to him these seconds and she wants to be blind to what he does, and what he did to her. Most important, to what he will do. She sees the danger, but he is her weakness.
Outside, the rain drizzles.
AN: I can't say surely how this would end. This oneshot is supposed to be canon, so you can imagine which choice Minerva made- an admirable and tragic one, duty over love. The right thing. However, when writing there are always options and possibilities, and if you wish, this might just as well be AU.